


the way we were then

by NotAllThoseWhoWander



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Gen, M/M, heavier smut in later chapters hon hon hon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:38:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotAllThoseWhoWander/pseuds/NotAllThoseWhoWander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arranged marriage, secret lovers, a little confusing and occasionally humorous. Alternate summary: Enjolras is very gay, Éponine is very conflicted, and Combeferre is very lovesick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 I.

_Éponine_

"Papa, are they here?"

Éponine flies down the stairs at a quarter to seven, fingers scrambling to straighten the maroon bow in her hair. Her mother had insisted that the color—so complimentary of her dark features—made her 'impressionnant'. Éponine wanted to be stunning then, allowing her mother to fuss over the bow's position, confident in the confines of her bedroom, wanted to leave a good first impression, but everything had been so different in the easy light of late afternoon. Her hair hadn't seemed quite so wild, and her painted lips not so animated. She lingers before the mirror in the hall, critical.

Her father appears in the doorway; briefly, shrouded in waxy light, a ghost. Round eyeglasses render his gaze flat and disclike. " _Non_." 

"I'm nervous." She speaks softly and regrets it at once; her mother descends, fringed shawl, loud jewels, smelling already of wine. 

"Not nervous." Thick fingers go first to Éponine's hair, twisting strands away from her forehead, dipping to adjust the chain around the girl's neck. A pendant in the shape of the crucifixion. The Lord on his golden cross. "Excited,  _c'est pas vrai, Vincent_?" Mathilde Thénardier bends to kiss her daughter; a fragrant damp kiss. "'Ponine." 

" _Non. Pas 'Ponine. C'est pas un nom pour une femme. Pour une petite fille, peut-être._ " 

Éponine refuses to let her father see her flinch. She straightens. "Of course, Papa." 

But the good doctor has vanished into the red depths of the parlor, no doubt finding greater solace in his pipe than either his wife or daughter can hope to provide. 

* * *

Then, of course, Azelma and Gavroche are herded downstairs, Gavroche's hair still damp from the bath, both of them jostling and teasing until Mme Thénardier is practically in tears and if Éponine hears another word slung about her 'husband' she swears she'll beat them both around the ears. 

This is unfair. Azelma is only thirteen, still lanky, boyish, utterly unconcerned with matters of the heart. And Gavroche—dear wild Gavroche—cannot be expected to understand how his words are arrows, how every quirked eyebrow is an insult, every whispered crude joke so very, very sharp. They are young and know only that the man who manages the family's financial affairs will be coming tonight, and he will be bringing his son, and that 'Ponine, old 'Ponine the story-teller, on whose back and lap they have climbed so often, will marry this boy, and soon, and that this evening they are to make their introductions and be polite and, for  _Christ's sake_ , act  _civil_ tonight of all nights. 

"Enjolras is late." Dr Thénarider mutters, tapping ash from the bowl of his pipe. "Per usual." 

"I'm certain that they'll arrive soon." Mme Thénardier, absent-minded, straightning her hairpin in the mirror. Éponine praying that the oil lamp's dry light will be forgiving.

"We shall see," the doctor, quietly, "Ridiculous woman."

"Please, Vincent. Not now." Éponine looks away from her mother's wringing hands, all twisted up, from Azelma's pale youthful face. Her stomach is leaping into mad fumbling knots. The air is cloying and waxy. 

Gavroche coughs, shifts in place. The clock in the hall goes off and Azelma starts, the crunch of wheels on gravel indicate an approaching carriage.

"Oh," Mme Thénardier says, voice too loud and hoarse in the silence. "They're here."

* * *

Éponine trails behind her father, following his liquid shadow across the drive. A four-wheeled cab shudders to a halt just beyond the low hedge, two figures descending. Éponine allows her breath to come quickly, her heartbeat to rise fast and scared in her chest. Lets her memory tear up images of Julian Enjolras as a youth, a skinny gangly boy of ten who liked to play war with the others in the streets before dusk fell. 

He has become a man, and he has become beautiful. Éponine's eyes drink up his good high cheekbones and the curve of his neck beneath his collar and his lips, curved into a genteel smile, golden hair curling around the nape of his neck. He comes to her father first, inclines his head, one hand at his stomach, the other at his back. There is something grudging about the gesture.

"Madamoiselle." He is before her, bending to take her hand, to kiss it, the way the kindly prince does in fairy-tales. His eyes are blue, very dark. "It has been far too long."

Éponine finds her breath. "I could not agree more."

He offers her his arm. She takes it. She can hear their fathers talking, low and fervent, behind them. She lets Enjolras lead her up the steps, into the house.

* * *

"So, Julian. I hear that you've been away at school." Mme Thénardier proffers a yellowed smile in Enjolras's direction. Éponine, having exhausted all possible subjects of polite conversation in a matter of minutes, breathes a private sigh of relief for her mother's restless tongue. The dinner table has already fallen victim to several awkward silences. Enjolras's father, though a respected man, is stoic to say the least.

"Yes. University, in Paris."

"How wonderful," Azelma says, far too loudly, and promptly drops her spoon into her soup. Dr Thénardier growls something to her under his breath, and she drops her head, blushing. 

"What do you study?" Éponine asks, watching as Enjolras's thin fingers drum a light pattern on the white tablecloth. Business, she expects, or law. Something respectable—perhaps medicine. That would make her father happy.

"Politics, actually."

"Such motivation!" Mme Thénardier turns to fix Éponine with a horrifically indiscreet look. "Do you hope to join a cabinet someday, Julian?"

"No, actually." He looks down, there is a tone of barely-audible disbelief in his voice, like he can't stop the flow of words, like he's weighing them out but they are being forced from his lips. "I hope to employ my knowledge of France's political structure in the future demolishment of the current system of opression of the lower classes."

The silence drops like a cloth. 

"Oh," Mme Thénardier says, very softly. Éponine curls her hands into fists under the table. Her throat stings hot with humiliation, the promise of tears. She should have known—her foolish mother, unable to keep from asking  _more,_ always  _more_. Dr Thénardier turning to his wife, hissing something that Éponine cannot hear but the threat resonates, huge and dark, around the dim room. Éponine thinks of how Marie, who cooks four evenings a week, had brought food from the kitchen, and recalls suddenly and with great embarrassment how Enjolras had looked from her to the Thénardier family and back. And how Enjolras is now looking at the doctor, and away, quickly. She sees the hardness behind his eyes.

"Julian is quite motivated." The elder Enjolras speaks like he's announcing before the king. "If not in quite the fields I should like him to pursue."

"What fields would those be?" Azelma lifts her spoon to her lips. Enjolras's face jerks into a momentary smile, or else a fascimile of one. 

"Medicine, business. Even something so common as dentistry would be perfectly acceptable. Ideally, I should like him to take up the family business. Finance, I think he'll come to learn, is no small matter."

"He's young yet," her father says, and Éponine wishes for merciful death. "Perhaps they will both come around." 

She cannot fathom how she has misbehaved, which past transgressions might have led to the hope of her 'coming around', but sees the flat glare of her father's gaze, daring her to respond. She is silent. 

"Yes," Enjolras says, beside her, and his voice is low and dusky. "Perhaps so."

* * *

They linger in the garden, in the last sweet, full breath of spring evening.

"I remember you as a boy," Éponine says, before realizing how foolish that sounds. "I mean, I remember our youth together."

"We still are young," Enjolras informs her, with a certain measured jest. She is keenly aware that their fathers are watching from the parlor window. 

"You always liked to be the leader. When we played games. I remember that."

Enjolras laughs bleakly. He looks sad. "Fate certainly has a strange hand in that, doesn't it?"

"If it means anything, I think that you would be a fine political leader." She inhales deeply. The smell of flowers, dew. "I think that you should be very fair."

"My goals are frowned upon by my father. One would think that an only son should be better treated."

"You go to school. Is that not treatment enough?"

Enjolras balks a little at that; Éponine wonders if he is unused to being singled out. She is aware that there is some truth glaring through here, an ugly truth that precludes Éponine as a sweet and soft-spoken girl and reveals instead some cunning, cruel-spirited witch of a youth. Some wild-haired dark-hearted heathen. She fights the urge to aplogize. She is unsure of whom, exactly, the apology would be directed towards: to Enjolras, or to her father.

"I mean to say that I find it somewhat strange that a boy of such wealth would devote his time to freeing the wretched lower classes." A sweet smile. Innocence.  _You do not understand his world, Éponine. A man's world. Politics and big cities. These things are not for women to touch._

 _  
_"Of course." Having wandered to the edge of the yard, they sit awkwardly on the edge of a stone bench; opposite ends, avoiding eye contact. "Of course you should not understand."

Her heart jumps a little at this; insulted. In the absence of light, Enjolras flares like a lantern. He is golden. His lips part slowly.

"We have been lucky to live like this, madamoiselle. Stately homes, the presence of a provider. Men who seek honest work. Servants. Perhaps this is something you have never dwelled on, perhaps this has not crossed your mind. People in the city starve, madamoiselle. Children our age, and far younger. Should you have been born under different circumstances, you and your lovely sister might be beggars—your brother Gavroche a lowly urchin. I have seen these people, and lived in their company for the better part of two years."

He stops, and fixes her with a blazing, desperate look. "In another life, we might have been beggars and thieves."

Éponine's cheeks warm. "Perhaps in this life we already are."

Silence comes like a cool blanket, squeezing into the cracks between them. She doesn't want to be wounded by his strangeness, mostly because she finds it alluring, attractive. A boy who fancies revolutions: so impractical, so brilliantly merciless and fanciful.  _  
_

"I, too, remember our youth. You seemed to enjoy playing games of doctor and nurse."

"That was a long time ago." Éponine says, a little crossly. She can still recall making the boys lay down in the shade beneath the oak trees, tending to imagined wounds. They had been injured in wars, or fights. She tied sticks to their arms with twine and called them splints. Bandages made of aprons. How foolish she had been. A girl of her station becoming a nurse; or, worse, more ridiculous still—a girl of any station becoming a  _doctor_. Laughable. 

Enjolras fiddles his hands in his lap. 

"We should go inside," Éponine says, more to break the silence than anything. "Our parents will wonder."

"If you like." He stands and dips into a bow, offering his arm. "Madamoiselle."

She wants to say  _don't call me that_. She's enchanted. She wants to kiss him. She wants to tell him off. 

She remembers that he never knew a mother. She remembers a lot of things. 

* * *

They say their goodbyes on the drive, both pretending that their fathers aren't scrutinizing their every move. 

"Until we meet again," Enjolras says, and kisses the back of her hand again. Éponine itches to tell him that he reads too much. She wouldn't mind it if he kissed her. That is to say, she wouldn't mind entirely. Maybe fewer clichés, and she'd be sold.

"Soon, I pray."

"As do I." He shakes her father's hand. She allows the elder Enjolras to kiss her cheeks, comment on how lovely she has become. He looks at her like a business deal. 

 

* * *

 2. 

_Enjolras_

They go through Argens in the cool heart of night. Oil lamps flare up, orange comets beyond the cab's grimy windows. Enjolras knots his hands in his lap and avoids looking at his father.

"A good family." His father begins, when enough time has passed to make them both uncomfortable. "An old family, the Thénardiers."

What he means is:  _a rich family. A landowning family._ Enjolras fixes his gaze on the rooftop of a passing apartment building. Already he aches for Paris. 

"Madamoiselle Éponine seems a clever girl." 

"Clever! Stick  _clever_." His father lets out a low, hacking cough. "Her father is a doctor. You will have connections."

"It seems to me that there may be more important aspects of such a relationship than connections." Enjolras measures his words carefully. "It seems to me that rushing into anything would be, at this point, foolish."

His father is silent for a long time, long enough for Enjolras to shift in his seat and clear his throat. 

"You have no mind for business," the elder Enjolras says, and the conversation ends there.

* * *

The house is big and dark and cold, and Enjolras can't stand to hear his father rousing the servant girl from sleep so she can light the fires, so he pulls on his good woolen coat, the red coat he'd spent all his savings on last winter.

 "Where do you think you're going?" His father barks as he crosses the foyer.

"I have matters to attend to," Enjolras snaps, not bothering to keep his voice trim or polite. " _Business_."

He goes through the door before his father can protest; he knows that he will not be stopped. Being a disappointment is often beneficial.

The coach is gone. Enjolras casts around for it, he'd be willing to pay the driver double at this time of night, but it's not cold at all. He inhales the rich fertile smell of springtime. He'll walk.

* * *

Rue Dupont, named for a now-disgraced ex-mayor, swings down towards the river, and midway around this bend there is a block of shabby apartments. Enjolras heads for Café Dupont—the owning Dupont being of no relation to the disgraced politician—and takes the side stairs to reach the flats above it. A dim hall, stinking of piss, the lonely sound of pipes being played, an argument. Enjolras finds the door with no trouble and knocks twice.

"Who the  _hell_ —" Grantaire opens the door violently, his exclamation dying on his lips at the sight of Enjolras. "Oh," he says, then. "Come in, if you will."

"I will," Enjolras says, and steps past Grantaire. The room is small and dim and invariably red; also, very shabby. Some of Grantaire's sketches have been tacked to the wall, the sole ornamentation. Enjolras surveys them briefly, from the corner of his eye: mock-ups of a painting, or what will become a painting. He sees a figure, nude, female. "You are working on something new."

"You like it?" Grantaire takes another drink. The air smells faintly of smoke. "If you should like it, you should liken the curvature of the collarbone to that of Achilles, the shoulder to Alexander, the stoicism of expression to Julius Casear himself. You should take the curvature of body as the movement of the Seine, the darkness of eyes to the smokestacks of Paris herself, that great terrible beauty which has so enraptured us all..."

He comes up to kiss Enjolras, and Enjolras does not move away; nor does he say  _you are drunk_ , because saying such things is without merit, saying  _you are drunk_ is a given, a constant at this time of night. Grantaire tastes like alcohol and his hands, when they go to Enjolras's waist and cheeks, smell like paint. Enjolras lets Grantaire back him up against the low bed, takes Grantaire's cheeks in his hand and twists to push him onto the unmade sheets. Eases himself on top of Grantaire, lets the dark-haired young man grind up against him and moan into his mouth. They are both hard and hopeless. It always begins like this, and usually progresses with a unique fervor. Enjolras takes Grantaire in his hand and Grantaire lets out a low whine as Enjolras strokes him, and Enjolras is relentless, and Grantaire gasps into his neck  _I'm going to come_ and spends himself in Enjolras's hand. 

And then Grantaire is smiling sideways and arching up to kiss Enjolras hard, and he slides his hand inside Enjolras's pants, spits crudely into his palm before doing so. Enjolras is prepared to pull a chastising face, because he doesn't appreciate vulgarity, but Grantaire is touching him so  _softly_ , it feels good enough to hurt a little, and he finds himself pressing down against Grantaire, moaning nonsense into Grantaire's ear and he comes quickly, unable to restrain himself.

Afterwards they lay bare-chested in the yellow heat, and Enjolras puts his head on Grantaire's shoulder.

"Oh, R," he says, softly against Grantaire's skin. "I am to be married."

Grantaire does not respond. When Enjolras looks up he sees that Grantaire's eyes are closed; he does not sleep, his brow is furrowed. He nods, a movement barely perceptable.

"How soon?"

Enjolras does not know what to say. He pressed their foreheads together, at once destroyed and desperate. 

"I will find a way, R." His fingers are tangled in Grantaire's dark hair. " _On trouve un moyen_."

* * *

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

II.

* * *

_Enjolras_

* * *

_  
_"I fail to understand," Enjolras says, "why you continue to endure such treatment from the man."

"Monsieur Enjolras is a very fair employer." Agathe murmurs, looking at the ground. She is young and dark-featured, pretty in a simple, clean-cut way. Upturned nose, freckles, strong upper arms from scrubbing dishes and clothes. Once, Enjolras would have looked away; shunning the company of women. "He is generous."

He feels somewhat guilty for having cornered her during her morning break. Agathe looks mildly peeved; Enjolras is struck with the sudden realization that she is merely tolerating his presence, waiting until he leaves so she can return to work. 

"Good pay is no reason to unnecessarily tolerate abuse."

"Don't know what you're on about, monsieur." 

"I've heard the way my father speaks to you. He is unkind. Moreso, he is abrasive. He comments on your youth and appearance. No woman should be forced to endure such commentary, and in particular from a man to whom they are practically  _enslaved_."

"My apologies." She tucks a strand of brown hair behind her ear, fixes Enjolras with a swift and unpitying gaze. "But you make a fool of yourself, monsieur Enjolras."

He watches her go across the yard, boots loud on the gravel. The house is tall and cool in the morning's warm thick light. Enjolras heaves a sigh and rests his back against the wall's cold, rough stone. He is tired and wan from a night of poor sleep; stayed with Grantaire, tangled up in the little bed under the window for a long time, neither of them asleep, just eyes closed, and he'd nearly cried thinking about Éponine Thénardier. He'd wanted to mention to Grantaire her name, and that they'd known each other as children. But such a mention seemed futile, and to let her name fall from his lips was to make the marriage real. 

He'd left early in the morning, in those sparing pallid moments before dawn. All the streets had been still, the oil-lamps still burning up the pre-sun mist. He'd gone quickly, having kissed Grantaire's sleeping cheek. Enjolras can never make himself look at Grantaire while Grantaire is sleeping because sleep affords people a certain aura of innocence, and of cleanliness, and in that faded light Grantaire had looked painfully young and whole. It hurt a little, but less than leaving. 

Sometimes it is easier to leave. 

* * *

_Éponine_

* * *

_  
__Yes,_ Éponine thinks.  _Yes, he is very handsome._

She says nothing. 

"A little like a prince, isn't he?"

Éponine ducks her head, fixing her gaze on the needlework in her lap. Her stitches are crooked, jagged. The canvas at the edge of the frame looks like a poorly sewn-up wound. 

"I think that monsieur Enjolras would disapprove of such a comparison."

Her mother purses her lips. Silence. Stiff silence, and Éponine knows that she was wrong to bring up the subject again. The parlor feels suddenly airtight. Too smoky, the stench of her father's pipesmoke lingering, choking.

"I'm sorry," Éponine says, and lays aside her needlework. An ugly floral pattern, horribly executed. Unsurprising; she's never been good at that kind of thing. Following patterns, sewing neatly inside boundaries. "I need to step outside."

She takes her leave, fleeing the stuffy red parlor for the cool, dim rooms of her father's office. Doctor Thénardier does not visit patients  _chez vous_ , excepting cases of absolute emergency; rather, they come to him, in a handsome brick building beside the Thénardier residence. The offices are small, and simple; a converted carriagehouse that, rumor holds, once housed revolutionaries during Napoleon's reign. She pushes through the door without asking, pulling the pins from her hair, sliding them between her lips...

"Oh." Drawing up in the doorway. A figure with his back to her, shuffling papers at her father's desk. "Excuse me...?"

"Sorry?" He turns. An open, pleasant face, bright eyes.

Éponine spits out the pins. 

* * *

III.

"You must be madamoiselle Éponine." He crosses the room in swift strides, extends a hand. "I'm your father's assistant."

"Not madamoiselle," she murmurs, and takes his hand. Shakes, his palm warm and dry. "Just Éponine, if you will."

"I hardly think that proper." He smiles, maybe a little uneasy. "Combeferre."

"Combeferre." She pretends that the name doesn't sound good on her tongue, doesn't fit right between her teeth. "A pleasure."

"The pleasure is all mine."

They share a moment of tense silence, Éponine thinking somewhat frantically of a good subject of conversation before reminding herself—forcibly—that speaking with other men is some kind of a novelty now, that she cannot afford to think of men as suitors because she is engaged (and if the thought tightens her chest a little, so be it), and girls engaged to be married speak to other men in a friendly and formal way, and dammit, his eyes are very bright and she can't help but think how handsome he is. 

 "I was looking for—"

"Of course, he only just—"

"—out on calls—"

"—making the rounds, naturally—"

"Thank you." She dips into an awkward curtsy, the kind her mother said would impress men of the right class. Combeferre smiles broadly, lifts the stacks of papers in farewell. Éponine skitters downstairs, into the warm brightness of the yard, and finds that she is able to breathe again.

* * *

The sunset is brilliant. 

Éponine lingers in the garden with Azelma, pretending to 'take in the air' mostly because she's ardently avoiding her mother. Mme Thénardier has requested time and again an audience with Éponine—doubtless to converse in hushed and discreet tones about Enjolras—and her sole haven, the bedroom that she and Azelma share, is miserably chill. So she has absconded to the garden's perimeters, perfering to suffer Azelma's questions instead of her mother's. 

"I saw the way you looked at him." Azelma lifts her skirt to her shins, lashes an ill-timed kick at a cricket.

"Are you going to accuse me of loving?" Éponine queries, folding her arms up under a black shawl. Appropriate, the color: a mourning shade. Azelma scoffs.

"Love and idolization aren't the same thing, 'Ponine."

Éponine swallows away the breath lodged in her throat. The sun is going down quickly, and in the shadows beyond the garden wall a lamp-lighter moves in the gathering dusk.

"You had better not," she says softly, "let Father hear you call me that name."

"I'll say it as loud as I like." Azelma kicks at another cricket. The insect's quiet, sawing music ceases, starts up again in earnest as soon as Azelma's shadow drifts across the lawn. 

"Keep your voice down." Éponine's gaze flickers, unbidden, to the carriagehouse. "Azelma, what do you know about Father's new assistant?"

"What have I heard? Or what do I  _know_?" Azelma is quick and clever, a brave shadow of a girl with Éponine's wild dark hair and a gap-toothed grin. Unapologetic, and while her parents fret over her future—because a girl who isn't softspoken and dainty is a girl who won't be wed to the  _right gentleman_ —Éponine has nothing but private admiration for her sister. 

"Heard. Know. I'm not so sure."

"He's a medical student, from the Midi, but studying in Paris. Papa hired him because he needs to make some money, he doesn't come from a titled family."

The words fall clipped and concise from Azelma's lips, phrases she's already memorized: titled family, make some money. 

"He's young. A good doctor, though, I heard Papa say that. Mama said that he shouldn't be trusted around all the young women in town, or they shouldn't be trusted around him. Why?" She pauses and seizes Éponine's arm with sudden vigor. "Do you fancy him, 'Ponine?"

"No!" Éponine wheels, flushing furiously. "No, keep your voice down—if someone were to hear—"

"I was only joking." Azelma pulls away sullenly. Her scarlet lips turn into a dark pout, and at once she is a little girl again. It is easy to forget, with Azelma. She speaks like a grown woman sometimes, all clever words, or like a smart young woman, well-versed in money and titles and romances. And then in an instant she is a girl, and Éponine loves her for that. "You couldn't fancy him, anyways."

"Why's that, 'Zelma?" She takes up her sister's arm, allowing herself to use the pet name only this once, out of earshot. 

"You're to be married." Azelma says, and something inside Éponine grows strange and sad. 

"Yes," she says. "Of course."

She feels a little dizzy as they return to the house's tall, gloomy shadow.

Azelma's arm is warm, linked with her own. 

All the lights in the carriagehouse are burning.

* * *

III.

* * *

_Enjolras_

* * *

_  
_The stars come out in all their cold silver glory, and Grantaire insists that they go sit on the roof of the building on Rue Dupont. Enjolras obliges, but only out of a certain sense of duty. He feels that he owes Grantaire something now, something unspoken.

"I need to draw," Grantaire says, and spins a paintbrush between his fingers, "some inspiration."

"I fail to see why inspiration escapes you indoors," Enjolras gripes, pulling on his vest. Grantaire's flat is dim but warm, lots of the cheap white candles that Grantaire likes to burn. The nude sketches have multiplied. Enjolras examines a particularly sultry one; the girl with spread legs, lips parted in a laugh, eyelids lowered. He looks away quickly. He wonders sometimes, what Grantaire thinks while he sketches. Breasts and the curves of hips, all the warm beauty and grace of the female form. No sharp angles, no ugly hard lines. 

"Come." Grantaire extends his arm, sweeps into a mocking bow. "My liege."

"Your humor escapes me," Enjolras says briskly, though he blows out the candles before following Grantaire to the end of the dim, foul hall and up a flight of rickety stairs. They are narrow and the air is thick and stale. "These seem quite unsafe," Enjolras murmurs, eyes trained on the bobbing light of Grantaire's lantern. 

The rooftop, too, seems unstable. Enjolras strides with forced confidence to a low wooden ledge, certain that the plaster and wood will give way beneath their feet. 

They ease themselves down with their backs pressed to the ledge, warm splintery wood, and Enjolras measures out the distance between himself and Grantaire in palm-lengths. There are no inches anymore, the only measurements necessary are how easy it would be to close the distance between them.

Grantaire sketches for a while in silence. Enjolras can see little of his paper in the dark; only thin, straight lines that he presumes are rooftops. The air presses cool and thin around them; there is the distant smell of a fire burning, the remote clatter of plates and tink of glasses. Cheering. Laughter. 

"There is Crater." Enjolras lifts a finger. "The Cup." 

A scattering of stars in the northern sky, like a jagged, long-handled ladle. 

"What's it named for?"

"A sacrifice." 

"A sacrifice." Grantaire's thin fingers twitch across the paper. Smooth lines. He smudges his charcoal with a thumb. "Enlighten me, O Scholar."

Enjolras huffs. "The city of Eleusis was struck by a great plague and, as our brutish forefathers did, offered anually the sacrifice of a young maiden. The gods were in this way satisfied—but the king, Demonphon, thought himself very clever. He never sent his own daughters away for sacrifice." Enjolras watches Grantaire's hands still on the paper; he tilts his head back and Enjolras's gaze traces the curve of his exposed throat. "A nobleman, Mastusius, object heatedly, and wicked Demonphon slayed in sacrifice one of Mastusius's daughters without first drawing lots. Mastusius hosted the king one evening, and in revelry offered the king a cup of wine. The wine was rich with the blood of the king's daughters, whom Mastusius had slain." Downstairs, in front the café, shouts rise. A brawl, no doubt. "The gods were displeased by such ruthlessness, and Mastusius was thrown into the sea and drowned."

"And his cup thrown into the stars."

"A reminder that no wicked deed goes unpunished."

Grantaire drops his head. "I see."

There is silence. The fight swells to a hot intensity downstairs, and then dies away. There is the sound of someone running.

"I, too, learned some constellations as a boy." Grantaire smiles sideways, and Enjolras drinks in his straight profile; the handsome slope of a straight nose, good chin and humorous mouth.

"Tell me."

"Perhaps I could enlighten you as to the nature of the Unclothed Schoolgirl. You see her there, bared bosom just overhead. I do believe that the single very bright stars marks the center of one pale breast..."

"R!" Enjolras elbows Grantaire and Grantaire continues, louder, enthused.

"...or perhaps more to your liking is the Debased Lovers, just there." He seizes Enjolras's hand and points broadly to the western heavens. "Two young men of a classical perseusion, both of them enjoying an eternal act of debauchery."

"You  _beast_!" Enjolras shoves at him, and Grantaire nudges Enjolras back, and in an instant they are roughousing, manhandling each other, and Grantaire gets a good hold on Enjolras's wrist so Enjolras jerks it roughly and in a swift motion straddles Grantaire, and Grantaire's protest is loss against Enjolras's lips.

" _You_ beast," Grantaire whispers, voice ragged as Enjolras's mouth goes to his throat, to the side of his neck. "We could be seen..."

"Is this not how you would have yourself imortalized in the skies?"

"You filthy bastard," Grantaire says softly, without dismay. Enjolras grinds down against him, ruthlessly, drawing a small noise from Grantaire, and he works his fingers into Grantaire's waistband, fumbling a little with the laces, slipping his hand inside to jerk at Grantaire. Grantaire lets out a feral sound, from somewhere in the back of his throat, and Enjolras feels like someone's doused him with frigid water. 

It's a nice shock.

There's nothing like the way that Grantaire thrusts against Enjolras, trying to find some kind of purchase, the way that straddling him feels because Enjolras has the power now, the upper hand, and he likes that. And he likes the way that Grantaire moans against his lip, the sound low, and heat pools in Enjolras's stomach.

"How debased," Enjolras murmurs, "you must feel now."

"How debased would you have me?" 

Enjolras huffs, half-laughing, and pulls his hand away from Grantaire. Grantaire lets out a low, desperate moan.

"You take what's said in—" and he writhes against Enjolras "—too seriously."

"I'm certain." Enjolras takes his time in pressing his palm against the front of Grantaire's pants, tracing the outline of his cock and watching Grantaire's eyes roll in a show of utmost agitation. Enjolras slides his pant back into Grantaire's pants, and Grantaire jerks himself into Enjolras's fist with renewed desperation, comes moaning against Enjolras's shoulder.

Enjolras lets his lips twist into a smile, halfway between satisfaction and sadness. Grantaire sighs, softly, and puts his head on Enjolras's chest, and Enjolras puts his chin on the top of Grantaire's head. 

They sit there in silence for a long time; a long warm silence, just breathing. 

"What's her name?" Grantaire says, his words muffled against Enjolras's shirtfront. 

Enjolras stumbles over the name, unwilling to sacrifice such a pleasant moment for Grantaire's curiosity. 

"Thénardier."

"Christian name?"

"Éponine."

"Éponine." Grantaire murmurs. The name is pressed warm and damp to the bare skin of Enjolras's collarbone, just above his heart. He turns his head away.

"I do not wish to think of it now."

"And do you wish to think of it ever?" Grantaire pulls away, his forehead damp with sweat, dark curls tangled. His eyes are shining in the wan lanternlight. Enjolras feels sickened. 

"No," he admits, very quietly. "No, I do not."

* * *

They go downstairs, and while Grantaire goes to wash himself off Enjolras looks at the sketches. 

His eyes fall upon Grantaire's earlier product; he'd assumed that it would be a rough landscape, rooftops and night skies.

It isn't.

He should have guessed.

The profile rendered in completion: handsome, easy. The gentle arch of a straight nose, parted lips, hair pulled away from high cheekbones. 

"What do you think of it?" Grantaire appears, face damp. 

"Your craft continues to impress me."

"Yes," Grantaire says, somewhat gloomily. "My craft."

At once, Enjolras knows that he should have commented upon something else—that Grantaire is waiting for him to speak, to correct himself, to make a right. 

"I must go."

"Stay. Sleep here, tonight.  _Chez moi_." Grantaire catches Enjolras's hand in his own. " _Je sais que tu_..."

Enjolras knows that he will conclude with 'want to', and does not want to hear those words fall from Grantaire's lips, so pulls away.

"I am sorry," he says. "Another night. Tomorrow." More lies.

As he reaches the doorway, Grantaire calls (sudden, unexpected, too softly):

"Is she beautiful?"

Enjolras freezes.

"I do not know," he says, slowly. "I have never thought of it before."

* * *

_Éponine_

_  
_

* * *

 

"I fail to see why my presence this evening is a necessity."

"And I fail to see why pandering to my daughter is a necessity." Her father adjusts his eyeglasses; careful, precise movements. "Must I explain my every move to you?"

"No, Father." 

It is too warm. First too chill, and Mother had insisted on all the fires being lit throughout the day, she and Father bickering about the cost of fuel and Father dousing the fires himself, everyone shivering silently and Mother griping that with all Father's income could they really not afford to keep a single fireplace lit in the mornings?

And now, unseasonably warm. The air is alive with pollen; it does feel like springtime, truly. Éponine takes lengthy walks in the garden and keeps a mental tally of the days until she and Enjolras are to be thrown together again.

"Your suitor will be there."

"Pardon?" She lifts her head. Her father turns and steps into the foyer, heels too loud on marble. He sifts through letters on the sidetable, scanning return addresses. 

"I believe that I made myself clear."

"Monsieur Enjolras?"

He fixes her with a flat look. "Unless you have made yourself available to other young men."

"No, Father."

"The Enjolras family will be in attendence tonight, yes. You are expected to make an appearance. If you will  _grace us_ with one."

Éponine's cheeks go warm with shame. She lingers in the library's doorway, savoring the thick, musty smell of books. 

"I only presumed...we are to see each other on Friday,  _chez vous_."

But Father—dear cold Father—has already turned away. He makes a sound of distant dismissal. 

Éponine takes her cue, and leaves.

* * *

"He did not mean it, 'Ponine."

These are the first words from her mother's mouth, and Éponine flushes with private rage. She might have known, when she'd fled the house to find her mother in the side garden, tending to her flowers. They have flourished in the good weather. There are roses now.

"He does not think before speaking. He makes himself seem cruel."

"I wish you wouldn't tell me these things."

"Mother..."

"Men are not so often cruel as they are misunderstood by women. You would do well to remember that, in coming months."

She stands, takes up her watering can, and vanishes around the side of the house. Insects fill the air with a distant, jangling music.

"I disagree."

Éponine turns on her heels. Combeferre is standing at the garden gate, hands on top of the fence.

"Enlighten me," she says, and lifts her skirts prudently to her ankles, sidestepping the flowerbeds. 

"Forgive me. I should have held my tongue."

"I don't believe you should have. You have the right to speak, as does the next man."

He looks at her funnily. "I believe that men are cruel. I believe that women mistake the cruelty of men for misunderstanding. Some men are cruel, needlessly so."

"Oh." Her chest has gone all cold. "I believe that you may be right, monsieur."

He begins to say something—lips parted, eyes too bright, too bright, she's flushing—but Éponine turns away. She feels his gaze cut into her, something pure and exacting. 

She feels that gaze chase her all the way to the house, indoors, and upstairs. She closes her bedroom door and leans against it. Azelma, sitting at the writing-desk with her penmanship book, looks up.

"What are you hiding from?"

"Nothing," Éponine says, and opens the door again. She feels foolish and exhilerated. She thinks about Combeferre's careful, mindful look. He hadn't taken his eyes from her, she thinks; how imprudent of him.

She hadn't half minded. 

* * *

 _Enjolras_  

* * *

 

 "I look like a proper dandy." Enjolras adjusts his cravat with measured indifference. He tries not to sulk in front of the mirror, dressed like an aristocratic pretty-boy in tails and good pale breeches.

"You look like a gentleman," his father says, pacing in the foyer. The carriage is late. Something is always late, or subpar, somehow not to his father's liking. 

 _I don't want to look like a gentleman_ , Enjolras thinks, and then feels like a sullen little boy. He fusses over his hair; might as well play the part. He refuses, on principle, to wear a hat. 

He dislikes immensely the idea of making an appearance at the de Croy's 'event', but  _not_ making an apperance would cause a stir. Besides, the Thénardiers will be there, and their lovely daughter. Enjolras wonders if gossip of his impending marriage has reached noble ears yet. If not, it will. The thought makes him feel a little breathless.

"At last," his father says, as the rattle of carriage wheels suggest their ride's approach. He dons his hat with a flourish. "If there is one thing a man of your position must learn, Julien, it is that there is a certain class of people who are not to be trusted."

"I don't pretend to understand what you might mean," Enjolras says, a little shortly, as they exit the manor house. A uniformed footman appears, opening the carriage's door with a grand gesture. Enjolras climbs in, warm with embarrassment. As of late, he's found himself growing increasingly uncomfortable with others doing things for him. Why allow a maid to make up your bed when you could do so yourself, in half a minute, upon waking? Why accept tea served by a bowing young woman when you could pour it yourself with no effort? 

"What I mean," his father says, not bothering to keep his voice down, "is that the lower classes may be entrusted only with menial tasks." The carriage starts off. It is cold inside, and smells damply of must. "The management of money, of the country...these are duties intended to be carried out only by another certain class, that class being our own."

 _Your own_ , Enjolras thinks.  _Your own class._

"These people, these—men—they allow themselves to become unruly and debased. Living in Paris has undoubtedly instructed you thoroughly in these matters."

"Quite well," Enjolras says, distantly, thinking about warm city nights outside saloons, Grantaire pressing him up against a brick wall still sun-heated, kissing down his throat, a cluttered noisy flat above a café and Grantaire's mouth on his sweaty skin...

"At any rate, they are inferior."

Enjolras swallows. "They must be. After all, I believe that  _our class_ would be entirely self-sufficient without them. I'm sure that you are quite skilled in the management of horses and carts, Father—or perhaps you should have us walk?"

This last biting remark silences his father, and at once Enjolras knows that he should not have spoken. 

The de Croy's mansion swings into sight, light like a bonfire. 

"I hope to God, Julien," his father says stiffly, "that you are able to keep your political views to yourself for a single evening."

Enjolras sees the Thénardiers from across the lawn as he disembarks, making a point of thanking the driver. Éponine, even from a distance, is radiant beside her father. He notices the way that she keeps her head down: polite, like her father has her on a leash.

"We shall see," he says. 

 

 

 


End file.
